


the common tongue of your loving me

by spokenitalics



Category: The Old Guard (2020 Movie), The Old Guard (Comic)
Genre: Anal Sex, Architecture as a metaphor for collective memory & other pretentious bullshit, Bottom Nicky, Choking, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Set sometime before the movie/vol. 1 of the comic, Smut, blowjob, nicky pov, top joe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:01:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25169626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spokenitalics/pseuds/spokenitalics
Summary: "It's just— Do you ever wonder how much we've forgotten?" Nicky asks, eventually. "How many names and faces and places have just… faded away from our memory?"Or: I heard Marwan Kenzari speak Italian, lost my mind, decided I wanted to write something set in Palermo. And then sex happened.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 132
Kudos: 2289





	the common tongue of your loving me

Nicky is on the terrace, folded arms resting on the balustrade as he watches the sunset.

The warm air carries the smell of jasmines and lemons and smog. In the distance, the sea is a blotch of blue ink, and the mountains a crown of green agate. Cradled in between, Palermo is alive with noises and lights as cars and bikes speed through streets lined with Baroque palaces and Art Nouveau hotels and concrete monstrosities.

The door to the bedroom slides open, and Joe embraces Nicky from behind, hooking his head on Nicky's shoulder and planting a kiss on his cheek. 

"News from Andy?" Nicky asks.

"Still doing reconnaissance, she texted me earlier," Joe answers. "Well, Booker did. They have a fresh lead on that human trafficking ring." 

"Work tonight, then."

"Yeah."

They stay like that for a while, because it's nice, and because Nicky has something on his mind, and he knows Joe can tell. Joe can always tell. 

"You were talking in your sleep last night," he says, in a tone that implies a question. 

"Just weird dreams," Nicky tells him, and, before Joe can ask, adds, "Not _our_ kind of weird dreams." 

"What kind, then?" 

"Memories," he answers. "Or stuff I made up and have somehow convinced myself are memories." 

"Good memories?" 

"Some of them."

Joe makes an _uh-uh_ noise, like he knows there's more. 

"It's just— Do you ever wonder how much we've forgotten?" Nicky asks, eventually. "How many names and faces and places have just… faded away from our memory?" 

"I guess… but does it make a difference?" Joe asks back. "We could spend the rest of our lives wondering and it wouldn't change a thing. I'd rather focus on the present." 

"But aren't you the least bit curious about what happened to them? All the things we left behind, all the things that became old as we kept going, all the things that were already old when we still weren't?" 

Joe doesn't answer, and Nicky lets his eyes trail over the city below — a city that's older than him, older than both of them combined, haunted by ghosts that speak Sicilian and Italian and Greek and Latin and Arabic and French and countless other languages. It's lavish and miserable and, Nicky thinks, looking at it from up here, not unlike a poisonous flower, equal parts beautiful and deadly and irresistible. 

"Remember that church they had here?" Joe asks after a while, his voice soft against Nicky's ear. "The one that used to be a mosque that used to be a basilica?"

Nicky nods. 

"Remember what happened to it?" 

"It was torn down by an earthquake."

"And?" 

"And they rebuilt it to be bigger and better and more beautiful." 

"They did," Joe concedes as he lets go of Nicky to move to his side, one hand still firm on the small of his back. "But the columns at the entrance — they are older than the rest of the new cathedral, and on one of them you can read a verse of the Qur'an…" 

"Because they come from the earlier church, " Nicky finishes for him, "the one that used to be a mosque."

"So, maybe that's what happens to old things: they become part of new ones."

"That's a nice thought."

"Only kind of thoughts I have." 

"I know for a fact that's not true."

"No idea what you're talking about."

"No?" Nicky asks, and then they're kissing, eyes closed, tongues pushing past lips, a familiar tingling around Nicky's navel. 

Even after a millennium, every kiss feels like the first one. They've gotten better at it since then, have gotten to know each other, gotten to know what they like, what they dislike, how to keep their teeth out of the way. Still, in a way, kissing is the same act of rebellion it was all those years ago — letting go of any notion of right and wrong, good and evil, virtue and sin, burning all of that away from their heads and from their hearts. 

_"Habibi,"_ Nicky breathes out when Joe's lips leave his own to kiss their way down his jaw and his neck. "I want you."

For a moment, he feels Joe's smile against his skin, teeth grazing his jugular, and then Joe's hands slip under his shirt. Nicky takes the hint and takes it off, throwing it somewhere, anywhere — he doesn't care. More kisses, on his collarbone and on his chest and on his stomach. With a hand on the back of Joe's head, Nicky guides him downward still. 

On his knees, Joe noses Nicky's crotch, mouthing at the bulge through the denim. 

Inpatient, Nicky tugs at his hair, and Joe responds by unzipping Nicky's jeans and pulling them down to his ankles. Then, with a sly grin on his face, he takes the waistband of Nicky's underwear between his teeth and yanks it down in one swift motion. 

Nicky's hard-on springs free, and Joe doesn't miss a beat, taking it into his hand. He licks its underside, drags the flat of his tongue from base to tip and then down again, slow and methodical, his eyes fixed on Nicky's. 

When he starts sucking on the tip, a rush of electricity travels through Nicky's bones. He lets out a moan, but the sound dies in his throat, because that's when Joe takes all of him in his mouth, digging his hands in Nicky's thighs and burying his nose in Nicky's pubes.

Nicky finds himself stumbling back, ending up leaning against the balustrade, head thrown back and lips parted as he gasps. He squeezes his eyes, grinds his teeth, makes a hissing sound that turns into a drawn-out moan. 

Joe reacts by quickening the pace, and Nicky can just imagine the faintest impression of a smirk on his face as he does.

And then he's gone, and before Nicky can even register his absence, before he can even open his eyes, their mouths meet again in a kiss that's more tongues than lips — hungry, urgent, playful.

 _"Girati,"_ Joe says, somehow managing to make it sound both like an order and a plea.

Nicky turns around, gripping the balustrade with both hands. He hears the rustling of fabric as Joe gets rid of his own clothes, hears him spit on his own cock, hears him whisper, "I need you," before pushing into him.

A soft cry escapes Nicky as the pain turns into pleasure, sweet flames becoming a flood that bursts under his skin and through his veins.

And as their bodies settle on a stable rhythm, as their moaning and their groaning and their panting merge together into a kind of breathless music, Nicky finds it hard to believe there was ever a time when the two of them didn't even speak the same language, when they didn't trust each other, when they outright hated each other — a time before they ran away together from Jerusalem and the battlefield and the screaming. 

Most of all, Nicky finds it hard to believe there was ever a time when he didn't know what it was like to have Joe's mouth on him, to have Joe inside him, to care for Joe's heart and soul just as much as he cares for his own, and to know he was returned in his devotion. 

Joe leans forward, plastering his chest against Nicky's back. His hands move on Nicky's torso, following a path they know well, teasing his nipples, brushing against his collarbones. Then, they take opposite directions until one of them is wrapped around Nicky's cock and the other around his throat, the friction making every muscle in his body twitch at once.

Nicky takes a sharp breath, managing to get just enough air in his lungs to ask, "Is this a new kink?"

"Maybe."

"I like it."

Joe laughs and thrusts even harder, faster. He tightens both his hands, sending stings of pain and pleasure right to Nicky's brain. At this point, Nicky can hardly tell the difference between the two. Whichever it is, he wants more.

And Joe gives him more, pulling him even closer, biting at his ear, and then licking it, kissing it, grunting into it. 

And just like that, Nicky comes, a wave of light exploding behind his eyelids as Joe keeps fucking him and jerking him off, their heads pressed together, their hearts beating as one. 

He turns just enough to catch Joe in an awkward half-kiss, sloppy and wet and ending with Joe gasping as he comes inside Nicky, the hand around Nicky's throat digging into the skin just enough to leave a mark, if only for a few seconds. 

"Stay," Nicky says, even if Joe is clearly in no rush to move, their sweaty skin sticking to each other in the summer heat. 

"I'm not going anywhere."

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come and scream at me about The Old Guard on [Tumblr](http://spokenitalics.tumblr.com)!


End file.
